Quentin Willson
I think I’ve found a way to get Generation Z teens engaging with humble, endangered classics – but first my latest buy will need some modifications...
backs words with actions and buys a special Vauxhall VX4/90
Awhile back I told you that classics Vauxhalls were worth watching. Well, I’ve just bought a 1963 VX4/90 HB. Before you drift off into a coma of boredom, I can offer solid reasons why buying what was once dubbed ‘Luton’s Loser’ is actually a good idea. Out of the 31,000 FBH VX4/90S built there are fewer than ten currently registered with the DVLA. That so many have gone the way of all flesh shouldn’t surprise us – these first-gen VXS were never hyped or worth enough to justify expensive restorations. But the really irresistible reason is the price. At a Brightwells auction in November, I handed over just £5600 for a very shiny, well-kept original car with an indicated 21,000 miles that could, looking through the thick sheaf of old Mots, conceivably be accurate. For something so tremendously rare and in such lovely nick, that’s silly money.
Especially given the lavishness of its spec. There’s a wooden dash with six ancillary gauges – five years before the Cortina 1600E – a tachometer, servo-assisted front disc brakes, a remote four-on-the-floor gear shift and a ported alloy cylinder head topped off with twin Zenith carbs.
VX4/90S even had a brief motorsport heritage, competing in the ’63 Monte Carlo, Spa, Tulip and RAC rallies and were tuned with great success by Bill Blydenstein. So why have enthusiasts so cruelly neglected them? One simple reason – the Cortina GT. Even though the sporting Vauxhall arrived two years earlier, Uncle Henry’s first fast Ford with its clean crisp lines instantly dated the fussy VX4/90. Ford’s mighty motor sport and marketing programmes gave the Cortina GT mythic performance status and it stayed that way right up until the Seventies. Luton’s hopped-up Victor was swept away in the Cortina’s slipstream.
But I have a cunning plan for this car. I’m patron of Young Driver Ltd – the world’s biggest under-17s driving school, now on its 750,000th lesson – that teaches kids as young as ten to drive on simulated road systems. This shiny old Gri£n will be fitted with dual controls to make the perfect learner classic to give pre-licence teens a feel for how their grandparents used to travel. A lesson behind the wheel of this, accompanied by an ADI instructor, will give teens a taste of wooden brakes, heavy steering, epic turning circles, and zero driving aids. A baptism of fire that kids will remember forever – but in a fun, illuminating way. My parents were rash enough to let me learn to drive in a 3.0-litre Reliant Scimitar and a 4.2-litre Daimler Sovereign and that hasn’t ended badly really.
We’re always moaning that there aren’t enough young people in our hobby, so AFM 694A will become an ambassador to help teen enthusiasts experience the compulsion of classic cars. I want to add an MGB roadster and Morris Minor convertible to the fleet, so if you want to sell decent examples of either, and further the cause of road safety and classic car awareness among Gen Z, get in touch. Who knows, teen drivers may one day be able to take lessons in Alpines, Spitfires, Midgets, Rapiers and Ventoras. And wouldn’t it be great to see kids talking about their driving lessons in classic cars on Instagram and Snapchat? A few dads will want to have a drive too. This bargain VX4/90 could become famous yet.
Quentin Willson had a nine-year stint presenting the BBC’S Top Gear, has bought and sold countless cars and has cemented a reputation as everyone’s favourite motoring pundit.